


I'd Settle for Just One

by bactaqueen



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, PIV Sex, bossy ladies, five times fic, foodplay, handjob, steve gets around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-07 23:19:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1917837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bactaqueen/pseuds/bactaqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Steve found the right partner(s).</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd Settle for Just One

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Recognizable characters belong to their respective owners. No profit is earned and no infringement is intended.
> 
> Author's Note: Because when he crashed the Valkyrie, maybe Steve really was only talking about dancing.

_1\. The Nurse_

 

Steve was "under observation" but he wasn't sure who was doing the observing since Dr. Erskine was dead. The only person he'd seen since Agent Carter had turned him over to medical was a pretty blonde nurse with dark eyes and red lips. He didn't _think_ she was anything more than a nurse... but he remembered the old woman in the antique store and he just wasn't sure.

The world was suddenly a much stranger place than it had been just that morning.

It was past midnight. He was in a single bed at the end of the long room, all alone and as far away from the door as they could put him. All he wanted was to let the sounds of the city through the big open window to lull him to sleep.

He just couldn't.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Dr. Erskine on the floor of the lab. He smelled blood and gunpowder and electricity. He closed his eyes, and he relived the whole day, from the nerves in the car with Agent Carter to standing, wet and chilly, on the dock, staring at his new hands and smelling the bitter almonds of the spy's cyanide.

Everything was different now. It didn't seem to matter how much he'd _wanted_ everything to be different--he wasn't prepared at all for any of it.

Steve stared at the sky through the open window and wished he had a book. His suitcase was still back at the barracks.

He was thinking about cyanide and electricity when he smelled _her_. He rolled to his side, facing away from the door, before it swung open and she stepped inside.

It wasn't her perfume, or her shampoo, or even the familiar combination of ammonia and cotton and warmth all nurses seemed wrapped in. It was _her_ , her skin, her hair. He guessed it was because of the serum. All of his senses were still heightened, even after the adrenaline had ebbed. It was like the whole world had gotten brighter and louder and smellier and had slowed down just for him. He _noticed_ more.

He wouldn't exactly call it a good thing.

He wished she didn't have to check on him so often. It was a lot easier to ignore a pretty girl when everything about her didn't send heat rushing through him, chased by guilt that made him feel sick.

She was just doing her job.

The guilt didn't do a damn thing about how he could _feel_. About how the slightest brush of anything against his skin seemed to set his nerves on fire. About how just the scent of her and the air off the fan spinning above him brought flesh to life.

His thin blanket and thinner sheet did nothing to help him hide.

Steve tried to curl in on himself and be as small as he was so used to feeling as she entered. His little hospital bed just wasn't big enough. He was too long and too broad for it--an unnerving reality now. He closed his eyes tight and hoped she'd think he was sleeping.

"How are you doing, Private Rogers?"

_Damn it._ "Fine, ma'am."

She came around the foot of the bed and he had no choice, he had to open his eyes and look at her. He wasn't _rude_.

"Still can't sleep?"

"No, ma'am."

She reached for his shoulder, where he held the sheet up high. "Come on, then. Let me check your vitals--"

He flinched away from her. She'd touched him once, her hand soft and warm against his bare skin, and he'd never in his life gotten so hard so fast. "Is there any chance you can...?"

She pursed her red lips in disapproval.

"Right," he mumbled. He didn't want to be difficult. If he was difficult, they'd kick him out--or, worse, send him to a science hospital far away from the front lines. Steve rolled to his back and sat up.

The sheet and blanket pooled at his waist. He stared straight ahead, at the wall across from his bed, and tried not to hear the catch in her breath or smell the new heat on her skin.

Agent Carter's glancing touch to his chest when he'd come out of Stark's machine had been his first clue, though it hadn't registered until much later. Her reaction hadn't been personal and neither was the nurse's. They were just reacting to what the serum had done. Steve couldn't even blame them. His reaction hadn't been very modest when he'd finally had the chance to shower off the grime of the river.

Still, his face burned with shame and want twisted in his gut. At least that combination of emotion wasn't unfamiliar. He was Catholic, after all, he thought darkly.

She readied her stethoscope and gestured for him to raise his shirt. Steve did, dutifully, and the chestpiece was cold when she pressed it to his breastbone. It took away some of the heat that flared again when she told him, _"Deep breaths, Private,"_ in that low breathy voice that made his insides squirm. He stared over her head breathed slow and deep and even, still a bit amazed that he _could_ , trying to ignore her hand on his back and the brush of her knuckles against his chest.

"Good," she said, and pulled away to drape the stethoscope around her neck. She settled on the edge of the bed and reached for his hand.

Steve jerked away from her. Her fingertips on his wrist were too much, he already knew from experience, and he'd made the mistake of leaving his hands in his lap.

There was no hiding... _that_.

Lips pursed, she just gave him another stern look. "I still need to check your pulse."

"Right." He knew that. He looked down and offered up his wrist.

She closed fingers around his wrist, her fingertips set to his pulse point, and she lowered his arm until the back of his hand rested on his thigh. He looked anywhere but at her as she timed his heartbeat, trying desperately not to be acutely aware of...

God, the _smell_. Had women always smelled that good and he'd just never noticed?

Steve closed his eyes as a fresh wave of heat rolled through him. Well, any hope he had of _not_ embarrassing himself was definitely gone.

The moment was only made worse when she said, smirk in her voice, "Something got you riled up, soldier?"

He gulped. "No, ma'am."

She let go of his wrist and Steve sighed, relived--relief that lasted only a moment, because the tips of her fingers grazed the evidence of his lie tenting the thin covers.

"So I shouldn't take this personally?"

Steve's eyes flew open and he was ready to blurt a desperate apology. He had no idea if she should take it personally, but there was a voice in the back of his head shouting that he really, really wanted her to.

It took a moment for his brain to register the smile on her face. She tugged at the covers and he thought, dimly, about how that wasn't professional of her at all. He really didn't care.

"Uh," he managed, and that was as eloquent as he got before she slipped her hand into the front of his shorts, wrapped her fingers around him, and squeezed just right.

He couldn't breathe.

Her smiled changed. She shifted closer, pressing her knee to his hip and planting her free hand on the bed right behind him and leaning in. Her lips were so red. Red and wet and inviting, but he hadn't been invited. His hands seemed to have minds of their own, one going to her leg (to her thigh, where the silk of her stocking was smooth and her skin was as hot as her lips were red) and one to her arm (just above her elbow, where he could wrap his fingers almost all the way around).

Steve thought that she'd say something or that he would. That was always how it went in his fantasies. She didn't, though, and he couldn't. She just leaned in and pressed her sticky-sweet mouth mercifully to his as she started to move her hand. He groaned and his fingers flexed and he moved closer to her--grateful, needy, under no illusion that this meant anything. How could it?

Why should it?

It wasn't long at all before he spent over her hand, making a mess of his shorts and the covers. She swiped her thumb over the tip of him and Steve shuddered, still unable to breathe, still way too sensitive. She kissed him one more time, smiling, and when she pulled away and he blinked at her, she seemed... amused and proud of herself.

"I'll take it personal, if you don't mind," she said.

His face went hot and he nodded.

She started to slide off the bed. He tightened his grip on her arm.

"Wait--" He couldn't just let her-- Not without-- But he had no idea how to--

She nodded at his lap. "Get cleaned up, Private Rogers. I've still got my rounds to make. I'll be back to check on you in a couple of hours." Her face softened. "Try to get some sleep."

 

_2\. The Showgirl_

 

St. Louis was hotter than Steve had expected. The wool and cotton of the costume did very little to cool him off and by the time he escaped the pre-show press circus, he felt like he'd sweated off ten pounds and his costume had caught every bit of it. He had just enough time for a cold shower and dinner before he had to put on the spare costume and be ready for the first performance of the evening, and when he made it to the door of his tiny private dressing room (sometimes being the only fella on an otherwise all-girl tour had its perks), he was looking forward to the break.

Things weren't at all what he'd pictured when he'd imagined joining the Army.

Things were even less what he'd pictured when he discovered that his dressing room wasn't empty.

"Rose!"

He shut the door behind himself quickly, so no one else saw what he did.

Rose--red-headed, freckled Rose--turned away from his vanity mirror and frowned at him. She was naked--well, not exactly naked, but topless, and he saw her underthings on top of her shirt folded neatly in the room's only chair, so he could guess what was under her skirt.

Steve put a hand over his eyes. "What are you--"

"You've _ruined_ the seduction now, Captain," she scolded.

"I'm sorry," he stammered reflexively, and then he realized what she'd said, and-- "Seduction?"

Rose sighed. "It's just bad manners not to look at a woman when she's talking to you."

She had him there. But when Steve looked, she still hadn't covered herself, and he couldn't help looking at her breasts, small and high and tipped in a color like her namesake, and at the constellation of freckles across her chest and shoulders. Her hands were planted on her hips and the corners of her mouth were turned down. She was displeased with him.

Steve _hated_ it when any of the ladies were displeased with him.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

She shook her head, her lips curving up into a small private smile. "You're unreal." She shimmied out of her skirt and hopped up onto his dressing table. Now she really was naked. She waved him forward, impatient. Her breasts bounced a little when she did that, and Steve had to swallow hard.

Then she spread her knees and he could _see. L_ ooking at her face became a real struggle. He coughed a little, delicately, and said, "Rose, why are you here?"

"Really, Captain? There's a naked girl in your dressing room and you can't figure out why she's here?"

"I don't want to presume," he said, and only stumbled over his words twice. "Edith said your dressing room gets so packed, sometimes she's jealous I get my own."

The look she was giving him was bemused amusement. "Come here, Steve," she said, gently.

He wasn't sure he liked the gentleness. He did as he was told, crossing the small room in three steps until he was standing in front of her. What else was he going to do? Turning and fleeing wasn't really an option--and, truth be told, wasn't something he really _wanted_ to do.

Rose was very pretty and he'd spied a familiar paper packet on the edge of his dressing table. Just because he didn't want to _presume_ didn't mean he didn't _want_.

Surrounded every day by some of the most beautiful women he'd ever met, he'd be a dead eunuch not to _want_. He was just better at self-control now than he had been that first night in the hospital.

He thought about that night often.

But not now. Not with Rose tugging the cowl off his head and running her hands down the front of him to hook fingers into his belt.

"Don't you want me?" she said, and pouted a little.

Steve might have watched the girls over the last few months enough to know that this was one of their tricks, but he wasn't sophisticated enough not to fall for it, and he didn't even try to pretend to be.

"That's a silly question," he said.

She smiled sweetly up at him. "Are you going to do something about it?"

"Why don't you tell me what you want me to do about it?" he countered, because he'd heard the girls talking, sometimes, about how fellas sometimes just _took_ and how they wished sometimes there was a little more _give_.

If he was going to spend so much time around women, he figured, he could at least learn something from it.

Bucky would be proud of him.

Her smile changed a little then. "Oh, you really are unreal," she said, and tipped her face up. "Well, you could start by kissing me."

That he could do. He shook the shield off his arm and let it clatter to the floor, then he planted both fists on the dressing table beside her hips. He leaned down to kiss her.

He smelled the spice of her perfume and the clean heat of her skin, the rosewater in her hair and the powder of her makeup. He tasted her lipstick, and the coffee she'd had earlier. Tentatively, he shifted a hand from the tabletop to her hip. He couldn't feel her through the glove, but he thought that mattered a lot less than the fact that she could feel his hand.

She sighed when she broke the kiss. "That's a good start."

He skimmed his knuckles up her side. "What's next?"

She grinned up at him.

What was next was a blur, really. She opened his belt and his shorts and then the back of the costume top, and shortly he was standing in front of her--with her legs wrapped around him--with his shorts and tights around his knees and the rest of the costume on the floor. Even the gloves, and touching her with his bare skin was a hell of a lot more intense than he'd expected. She wriggled in his arms, brushing the damp curls of her sex against his prick, and she left smudgy red kisses along his collarbone and the perfect imprints of her lips around each of his nipples. (He'd laugh about that later.)

She liked his hands on her back, and then on her breasts, and on instinct he leaned down to take each pebbled tip into his mouth, to hold with his teeth and tease with his tongue. He thought she liked that a lot, if the way she scratched at his head and shoulders was any indication. He could smell her, hot and pungent, and when he thought of sinking a little further and putting his mouth _there_ his cock gave a twitch and he was just about to do it, to ask if he could, when she pulled him up and wrapped an arm around him and pressed her mouth to his ear.

"I'd like for you to fuck me now, Captain. Please."

It was the most polite he'd ever heard Rose, and that alone--even if the dirty word from such a pretty mouth hadn't been enough--was enough to make him reach for the rubber.

He put it on while she mouthed at his chest, and then she was guiding him inside her, and _wow_. He managed to kiss her to keep himself from saying it out loud.

She put her arms around his waist and dug her fingers into his ass and Steve let her set the pace, let her show him how to move. He kissed her neck and her shoulders and her mouth, and when she pulled him close and kept him deep inside and she _moved_ against him, he kissed the edge of her mouth and listened to her breathing stutter and catch and _felt_ it when she finished, when she caught what she'd been chasing.

She was beautiful afterward, a little sweaty, her hair a little wild, her skin flushed as pink as her name. He took the liberty of a soft, lingering kiss, and he told her how pretty she was.

She laughed at him. "I knew you'd be perfect."

"You thought about this?"

She raked the tips of her red nails down the front of him, from collarbone to hip, and smiled. "And I'm not the only one."

 

_3\. The Fan_

 

She was pretty and blonde and her Southern accent was really something. Steve only had a couple of minutes to talk to her before they moved her along and he was smiling at the next face in line, but he thought about her all evening, all through the photos and the interview and the two shows. He thought about her until Edith dragged him into a disused closet, and when Edith let him go he had a whole new set of thoughts about her.

He liked blondes.

(Truthfully, he liked them all.)

He figured thinking was all there was to do about her by the time he got to leave the theater in his regular clothes. The troupe had a rare day off the next day, and they were staying in Charleston. Steve knew that a lot of the girls had gone to find the bars where the airmen were drinking, and he knew some of the others had planned an outing the next day. He'd been invited along by both groups but a day off was as good a time as any to catch up on his letters to Bucky and fill some of the pages of his newest sketchbook, so he'd declined.

"A girl can get real bored waitin' for you, Captain," came a voice from the shadows, drawling and lazy and so sweet it sounded like it was dipped in honey.

He turned to find her stepping out of the shadows beside the back door. He said, "I'm sorry," because that seemed to be how all of these encounters started.

"Don't you know it ain't polite to keep a lady waitin'?"

Steve ducked his head and said again, "I'm sorry."

She stepped into his personal space. "Well, the least you can do is walk me home. It's too late to do anything _respectable_."

The way she said that, _respectable_ , sent a jolt straight through him. He hesitated, then offered his arm. "Do you live far?"

She tucked her hand into his elbow. "Lucky for you, I don't." She led him out of the alley and onto the sidewalk and turned right. "Aren't you even going to ask my name?"

"I thought you'd give it if you wanted me to have it," he admitted.

The smile she gave him was one he knew. It seemed like every woman had one: promise and unexpected pleasure and a touch of pride, like she'd had some personal influence on his education. "Smart as you are pretty, I see."

He smiled back. "Women aren't as much of a mystery as they used to be."

"Well, I hope you haven't figured out _all_ of our secrets, Captain."

No, Steve thought. He hadn't. But what he did know he'd learned to use. "I think I do all right."

And he was still thinking he was doing all right half an hour later, when she brought out the tray with the little pot over the candle, and he smelled the chocolate. He was sitting on the floor in her tiny parlor, next to the coffee table, just where she'd told him to be, and he'd taken his shirt off, too.

Some orders he was good at following.

"What's that?" he asked.

She set the tray on the floor and folded herself onto her knees beside him. "Fondue," she said.

Steve decided that he liked fondue.

He didn't care one way or another for the chocolate so much. He liked the taste of it in her mouth, though, and he really liked the warmth of it as she dribbled it over his chest and belly, and he really, really liked the way it felt when she licked it up. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes and tried to keep his hands at his sides, but when she opened his pants and pulled them down to his thighs and she dribbled the chocolate there, too, and then licked it up, well.

Her hair was nice and soft between his fingers.

But the real story was the fireworks she made him see.

He didn't manage to stifle the " _wow_ " after that.

She laughed, rising on her knees over him, and her face swam into view. "How about returning the favor, soldier?"

He blinked up at her. "You mean you'll let me--"

She grinned at him.

Steve still felt a little light-headed, but that didn't stop him at all from sitting up and putting his hands in her hair and pulling her into a kiss. She tasted salty-sweet, his release and the chocolate both lingering on her tongue, and that was-- Well. That was a revelation, too. He turned them until he could lay her down, gently, and then he pulled off her slip and her brassiere and her sheer panties. The hair between her legs was as pale gold as the hair on her head and all he really wanted was to put his face there, but he supposed that he could wait.

After all, the fondue seemed to be part of the event for her, not merely a means to an end.

So he dribbled the chocolate over her breasts, and her belly, and between her hips. Feeling bold, he let some fall on her thighs, too, and roll down the insides. And then he set about licking it up, tasting skin and chocolate and the heat of her, teasing her nipples and the flat of her belly and biting, teasingly, just below her navel. He worked up and then back down, and when she spread her legs for him he thought of how she'd made him see stars. He could return that favor.

He slid his hands under her buttocks and glanced up. Her head was back, her eyes closed, and she was pinching and tugging at her nipples. Steve bit back a groan and licked the lingering flavor of the chocolate off her thighs. She spread her legs wider, and he teased the warm fold where her thigh met her body with his tongue and his lips. Since she wasn't looking and couldn't see the heat suffuse his cheeks, he looked at her, at the way her body opened up, at the slick shiny wetness that seemed to spread all over her.

He licked her there, too.

Her body arched off the floor and her thighs came up around his head, and he didn't mind that at all, even though he could only breathe a little through the fine curls on her mound. He just closed his eyes and held on to her and let his tongue do the work she wanted.

She heaved and shook when she came, and he backed off.

She put her fingers in his hair and pulled him back. "Again," she said, and it wasn't a request, it was an order.

She gave a lot of those.

He liked them.

It took longer the second time, and after a few minutes she made a low noise and told him to use his fingers, too, and he slid two of them inside her, into that tight heat, and his eyes went back in his head and his cock started to throb again. He thrust a little against the floor, against the inside of his shorts, but it didn't do him any good, and besides, licking the little button above his fingers while he worked those fingers into and out of her was much better.

That time, when she came, it seemed to go on forever.

Steve gaped at her. Maybe he should have been a little embarrassed (it wasn't like he hadn't seen a woman, you know, _get there_ before, but-- _wow_ ) but he wasn't. Because, _wow_. She shuddered and didn't breathe at all for what had to be a good minute and a half, and even when she started to relax, he could still see the way her muscles gave fine trembles, like ripples in a tidepool after you dropped a pebble in.

He was still kneeling between her legs when she finally opened her eyes. She blinked at him a few times, and then gave him a lazy, sated smile.

"What do you think of chocolate fondue?"

Steve thought about it for a moment before he said, "I don't think they'll let you serve it like that in the restaurant."

 

_4\. The Showgirls_

 

Steve glanced at the clock on his nightstand when he heard the knock at the door. It was well past curfew and just before lights out, and the next day promised to be a long one of appearances and rehearsals and shows. He was pretty sure Brandt's aide wasn't the one knocking on the door--which could really only mean one thing.

Steve tucked his sketchbook and pencils into the nightstand drawer. No reason to let the girls _see_ what he worked on in his time alone.

He assumed, before he opened the door, that it would be Rose, or Edith. Maybe Marie. Her soldier had just asked her to return her engagement ring because he wanted to give it to a woman he met in Italy. It wouldn't be the first time Steve had put the pieces of a girl back together after a bad breakup.

He was not expecting Betty, and he was _definitely_ not expecting Florence, and he certainly didn't expect to see both of them standing in the hall outside his door, wrapped up in their dressing gowns, their hair in pin curls and their faces bare.

But the way they were looking at him like he'd done something wrong to both of them personally, well, he might have been a little ashamed to admit that he was hiding behind the door less as a way of protecting his modesty and more as a way to shield sensitive parts he was hoping to need later. He couldn't imagine what he'd done to either of them, let alone both, to have them turn up at an hour like this and looking like that.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" he asked.

Betty gave him a sweet, sweet smile and he knew it was dangerous. "Why, Captain America, I never would have imagined that come-on from _you_."

Months before, Steve might have blushed. Now, he just grinned. Nothing he said could be as bold as the two of them showing up at his door in their night clothes just before lights out. Maybe he was worried for no reason after all. "I got a double, it's probably big enough for all three of us."

The girls came in and he closed the door behind them after checking that the hall was clear. He may have been an open secret among the girls, he may never have turned anyone down no matter what they wanted, but he still felt responsible for protecting their reputations, and the last thing he wanted was for anyone to see anything that would even hint at impropriety. As far as Steve could tell, Brandt's man didn't know, the chaperones didn't know, and the support personnel and the band didn't know--and that was exactly as he intended to keep it.

When he turned around, they were already out of their dressing gowns, and... well. Steve had expected to at least have to do _some_ work.

"I feel overdressed," he said.

"You are." Flo raised an eyebrow at him.

Steve stripped out of his pajamas. "How do you want me?" Because Betty, he knew, liked it straightforward. He didn't know much about Flo--the rumors were that she wasn't into fellas. But he'd learned over the past few months that the best way to give a dame what she wanted was to ask.

Betty grinned at Flo. "I told you."

Flo was looking at Steve, her mouth set and her brows furrowed. "I don't believe you," she said to Betty, and then to Steve, "You're too serious."

"What am I too serious about?"

"Everything," she said. "You remind me of Mother Superior." Her eyes roamed over him and her lips twitched. "Well, sort of."

Steve looked at Betty for help. He'd never been compared to a nun before.

"You never smile," she said helpfully.

He frowned. "I smile." Then he realized what he'd done and he tried a smile, but he was never any good at that. "I smiled at you just now!"

Betty laughed at him and closed the distance between them. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and smiled up at him. "I know you smile, Captain. You don't have anything to prove to _me_."

He put his hands on her waist and wondered why he felt like he had anything to prove to Florence. Then he wasn't thinking much at all because he was kissing Betty, and she was warm and small in his arms, against him, and he figured that if Flo wanted something, she'd let him know. He wrapped his arms tight around Betty and picked her up.

She squealed, delighted, and Steve had known she would. He walked her across the room so he could lay her out on the bed and hold himself on hands and knees over her. He smiled down at her, because this was familiar, even if he felt the bed dip and saw Flo propping herself up on her side beside them.

"Well?"

Betty grinned up at him. "You know how I want you, Captain."

He did, and as he set to it, he wondered a little at how he knew all of these things now he hadn't known four months ago. He felt Flo's eyes on him and Betty's fingers in his hair, and he wanted to leave his eyes open, to look, to watch the reddened skin of Betty's breasts, of her belly, of her thighs that he left in his wake, but it seemed rude with Flo watching him. So he shut his eyes and he reveled in everything Betty offered, the smell of her and the taste of her and the way she felt under his hands and the way she sounded when he lingered just where she liked.

He settled between her legs and pushed one finger into her and slid his tongue right over where she liked it best. He didn't waste any time, fucking her with just the one finger, swirling his tongue around her nub, and she held his head in place with her fingers in his hair and rolled her hips against him. He let her move, familiar with this dance. He wasn't surprised at all when she finished, piercing the silence of the room with her soft sharp cry.

Smiling to himself, he withdrew his finger. He raised his head, just enough, and Betty looked down at him. With her eyes on him, he did the part she liked almost as much as the rest: he sucked his finger clean.

Betty flopped back into the pillows and sighed happily. "Told you," she mumbled, drunk and drowsy.

Steve glanced at Flo. Flo, on her side, one hand between her thighs. She stared frankly at him, a little hungry, and that look made him shiver.

"You were right," she said to Betty, still looking at Steve. To him, she said, "Have you got a skin?"

"Uh." He thought he did, probably in his kit, and glanced at his bag on the chair across the room.

Florence pushed herself up, leaned over, and pressed her mouth to his. She licked into his mouth, stealing the taste of Betty off his tongue, and-- Oh. _Oh._

"Yes," he said when she let him go. And if he didn't he would _find_ one.

She gave him a smile that felt like a reward. "Go get it."

Steve scrambled off the bed, nearly stumbling over his own feet, and across the small room found one of the paper packets in his shaving kit. He turned back to the bed to find Flo on hands and knees over Betty and--

Well. He supposed the whispers about Flo were true after all.

He wasn't all that surprised about Betty, either.

He folded his fingers around the packet and wondered if he shouldn't put his clothes on and leave them to it. He was trying to decide how to explain needing to bunk with his chaperone when Flo pulled away from Betty and gave him a come-hither look over her shoulder.

"And come back," she said, as if he were maybe slow.

He felt slow. "You two don't want to be alone?"

Flo hid her face against Betty's shoulder and she shook a little with what Steve realized was laughter.

Betty chuckled and ran her hands up and down Flo's back. "If we wanted to be alone, Captain, we wouldn't have come here."

She had him there.

He went back to the bed.

Flo pushed up to her knees and half-turned to meet him, and Steve was happily surprised when she put her arm around him, splayed her fingers in his hair, and pulled him into a kiss. He wrapped an arm around her and the other he trailed down her side, from ribs to hip. Tentatively, he teased the tips of his fingers over her hip and along the inside of her thigh.

She pulled away, sighing. "None of that teasing for me, I've had enough." She got back down on her hands and knees over Betty. She looked over her shoulder at him once more. "Well?"

Well. Steve opened the paper packet and rolled the condom on. He shuffled on the bed, behind Flo, and felt a little lost. He'd barely touched her at all and--

" _Captain_."

He set a hand on her hip and wondered if all the girls took classes in how to boss around their captains. Then he was pushing into her, and listening to her long happy sigh, and she was so tight and hot and slick that thinking wasn't something he was really capable of any longer.

Betty reached up and slapped his ass. "Come on, Captain. Put your back into it."

That startled him into freezing, and then Flo was arching her back and rocking against him, and he heard her low "please." Just because Betty was crude about it was no reason not to do as he was told.

Flo, it turned out, liked it rough.

She went off twice with him inside her, her mouth to Betty's and Betty's fingers on her nub, before she flopped gracelessly down. She moaned a little when Steve pulled out of her. From the way Betty petted her hair and the soft murmurs they shared, he felt like an interloper. He was ready to slide off the bed and retreat to the bathroom down the hall to take care of... things... when Flo shifted just a little, and she and Betty were both looking at him.

"Why don't you?" Flo's voice was low and smooth and she was looking at him through hooded eyes.

Steve kind of shook his head and started to decline, but he saw Betty's fingers tracing whorls and curlicues on the small of Flo's back. He couldn't stop staring at her fingers, long and red-tipped, and while he couldn't really _think_ , he definitely _knew_.

Betty said, "Come on, Captain."

That was how he ended up not worrying about the rubber discarded on the rug and taking himself in hand. He watched himself, more than a little fascinated and unable to breathe, as he spent on the small of Flo's back. And then Betty ran her fingers through it and Flo wiggled and Steve thought maybe he was dreaming. Maybe a fever dream and he was on his deathbed back in Brooklyn.

He fell asleep that night wrapped up in a couple of gorgeous showgirls, and in the morning, he helped them sneak back to their room.

_5\. The French Prostitute_

 

Bucky took his hat, Jim took his jacket, and Dum-Dum planted a shoe on his ass. The next thing he knew, he was catching himself on a peculiar high cushioned chair and listening to the lock _click_ in the door behind him.

"One hour!" Bucky shouted, voice muffled by the thick door. "Happy birthday, _Captain_!"

Steve wondered if it would be really bad of him to beat his best friend and most trusted sergeant on his birthday. Could he get away with it by calling them birthday spankings?

_"Je suis désolé,"_ he said.

The girl, lounging on the bed, just smiled a practiced coquette's smile and looked at him with big blue bedroom eyes. "You think that's the worst I've seen?" she teased in accented English.

No, Steve supposed that wasn't the worst she'd ever seen, and he didn't really want to think about what the worst she'd ever seen actually _was_. To Bucky's credit, he'd at least found one of the _nicer_ brothels, but a brothel was still a brothel and Steve wasn't really comfortable.

Even if she was _very_ pretty.

And they'd already paid her for her time.

And, he supposed, what she did wasn't any different than what he did.

He didn't want to think about that.

Steve stood up straight and smoothed the front of his rumpled uniform. They were in Allied territory to regroup and when Bucky had let the rest of the Commandos know that it was his birthday, the decision to celebrate had been almost unanimous. Steve had been so glad to see Bucky smiling again, smiling like the boy he'd known back in Brooklyn, that he didn't even mind that it was at his expense.

Well, joke's on you, buddy, he thought. Bucky thought they were sending Steve in to get _deflowered_.

She slid off the bed, liquid grace, and Steve stopped thinking about his friends on the other side of the door. She was small, fine-boned and curvy, and the sheer purple she wore did nothing to hide her and everything to excite. Steve shifted his weight.

"I'm, uh, Steve," he said.

She smiled at him like she might want to laugh at him. Steve told himself he couldn't possibly be the most awkward she'd ever had, and that eased his nerves a little.

"What's your name?"

She did laugh at him, then. She slipped around the chair and sidled right up to him and her fingers played with the buttons of his shirt. "What do you want my name to be?"

That made him frown. Of course she wouldn't give her real name. Something had to be hers and hers alone. He brought his hands up, but didn't know where to touch her, so he let them fall again.

"It's all right," he said, as much to himself as to her, and as he looked down at her, he felt himself go calm. He asked, "What are the rules?"

"Your friends paid for anything you want." She ran her hand down the front of his shirt and smiled up at him.

Steve didn't want to look at her as he asked, but it would have been rude not to. "Anything?"

"Anything," she confirmed, and tugged at his tie. "What's the super soldier's secret fantasy?"

He'd done a lot. Those months on the road with the showgirls... He didn't think there was much left he _hadn't_ done. But there was _one_ thing. And he felt a little shy. He'd never been bold enough with the others. Usually they had something they wanted, and he felt obligated to deliver, to give them the good time they were looking for as safely as he could. He never minded. The education alone... and the girls. They'd all been so pretty, so strong.

She was strong, too. And Steve thought maybe there were lines you shouldn't cross with a woman who sold her affection, but he wasn't sure when, or if, he'd get this chance again, because he was starting to think now he might not survive the war, and if he did... There was very little chance he'd get what the guys talked about, the dream everyone seemed to have.

He could see that now.

So he said, "Can I-- Can we--" Stumbling over his words had never been his favorite thing, but the one thing he still hadn't learned was how to talk to a woman when she was undoing his tie and opening the buttons of his shirt. It suddenly didn't matter that she didn't really want him. He didn't really want her, either. He just wanted what she promised, what she offered, and he thought maybe he could take without feeling too guilty if he didn't lie about what he wanted. "Can we... go slow?"

She paused. She looked up at him. She said something sweet to him in French that he didn't understand, then, "Your friends said it's your first time. I'll be gentle."

It _wasn't_ his first time, and he wanted to protest, but maybe it was easier to let her believe that it was than to explain. Maybe it was just easier not to think at all.

"May I kiss you?"

Her lips pursed, and Steve thought she'd say no. What she said instead made him laugh.

"Don't you know where my mouth has been?"

He smiled at her. "Can't say I mind, ma'am."

She laughed. She wrapped his tie around her hand and tugged, and she said, "For you, Steve."

She tasted sweeter than he expected.

He let her undress him, and while she did, he fingered the thin satin strap of her negligee, and he kissed her neck and her shoulder. Her skin was warm but without the heat of arousal he'd learned to recognize. She tasted sharp, like hard work, and he could admire that. When she got him stripped down, he pulled her up from her knees and took her into his arms and kissed her again.

It was different. He was used to the heat and rush of being wanted. This was... not bad. Because he didn't let himself dwell. He could at least not hurt her, he thought, and he didn't need her heart. He just needed the pretense of being with someone who wanted him not because of what he could do or what he looked like, but because of who he was.

For the time being, as he laid her on the bed and he moved over her, he believed it.

She let him kiss her all he wanted, let him run his hands over her and learn the shape of her, the texture of her skin. He kissed her mouth, her throat, her collarbones. He lingered at her breasts and at her belly, and moved slowly between her thighs, waiting for the slightest sign that he should stop. She let him, though. Let him taste her, let him lick and play until he was breathless. He didn't mind the sharp taste of rubber or the false wetness. She was soft and smelled right and she played her fingers in his hair like he mattered.

When he rose, sliding the length of her body, kissing as he went, she was holding one of the paper packets, and he smiled a little as he took it from her and sat up on his knees.

"Guess they are French letters now," he said, and that got a laugh out of her that seemed genuine.

She held her arms up to him. "I've got a few letters for you, American."

He fell into her arms, grinning. She wrapped around him, arms and legs, and he slid a hand between them to guide himself, and he pressed his face to her neck as he slid inside.

She sighed. She stroked his hair and his neck and his shoulders, and she brushed her lips to his ear. She started murmuring, words he didn't recognize, but it didn't matter. Steve kept his eyes closed and his face in her hair as he moved.

He didn't make it last. He was supposed to be a virgin, after all, and she was warm and welcoming and so good, and he didn't see any reason to waste her time. He kissed her skin and let her hold him for a few minutes--not too long, he knew how heavy he was. And then he started to push up, lingering just once to kiss her.

_"Merci."_

She ran her hand down his back and smiled up at him. _"Joyeux anniversaire."_


End file.
